by Len Levinson
Ephraim turned his head toward Truscott, and then his eyes roved over the faces of every cowboy and vaquero in the outfit. He picked up the leather bag at his feet, tipped it upside down, and its contents fell out.
They expected trinkets, the head of a dead hawk, or maybe a magical Comanche amulet, but instead small, roundish, dark-colored objects fell to the ground, and it looked like bark or other vegetative matter.
“What is it?” Truscott asked, kneeling beside Ephraim. He picked one up, turned it over in his fingers, and sniffed it. “What does it do?”
Ephraim put one into his mouth and chewed as he stared into the fire.
“It’s somethin’ to eat,” Truscott said, raising it to his lips.
A bony hand appeared out of the night and grabbed Truscott’s wrist. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you, Ramrod,” said Slipchuck.
“Why in hell not?”
“Might be pizzoned.”
Truscott chinned toward Ephraim. “Ain’t killed him.” He held the stuff out to Don Emilio. “You ever see this before?”
Don Emilio gazed at it. “Never,” he replied.
Ephraim spoke, and his voice was even lower than his usual baritone. “It grow out here. Iron Pants say it the medicine of the Great Spirit.”
“Iron Pants eat any?”
“Yep.”
Truscott bit a tiny bit off with his tobacco-stained teeth, and chewed it. “Tastes bitter.”
Ephraim looked up at him. “Make you drunk, like whiskey,” he said, flames dancing like dragons across his eyeballs.
“Whiskey?” Truscott raised the medicine to his mouth, and Slipchuck held his wrist again. “You said it yerself, Ramrod. Never put somethin’ in yer mouth, you don’t know what it is.”
“He’s right,” Cassandra said. “We need to keep our wits about us.”
“You keep your wits about yerself, if that’s what you want, Mrs. Whiteside,” Truscott replied, “but I been drinkin’ whiskey when you was just a gleam in yer daddy’s eye. Last time I was in San Antone, I drank three bottles of the worst rotgut the world ever saw, and broke one bottle over the sheriff’s head, so what’s this damned dried cowshit gonna do to me?” He stuffed the medicine into his mouth and chewed defiantly. “If it’s anythin’ like whiskey, I can use it!”
The other cowboys stared at Truscott as he picked up another piece of medicine and put it into his mouth. Then the cowboys turned to Ephraim, who smiled faintly as he stared into the fire. Truscott munched his third chunk of medicine, one eye raised skeptically.
“Don’t feel nothin’,” he muttered.
The cowboys picked up medicine, and Stone was among them, wanting his share. He placed a handful in his mouth, and they had an odd tangy taste like an orange peel left in the sun too long.
Cassandra watched the cowboys and vaqueros gobble the gift from the Comanche medicine man. She didn’t want a crew of drunken crazy cowboys, and she the only woman around. Released from their ordinary restraints, they might do anything, but she couldn’t simply leave. The prairie was full of Comanches who’d treat her even worse than cowboys. She’d have to stay at the campsite and defend herself, and if they came for her, maybe a few well-placed bullets would stop them.
She watched the cowboys warily as they sat on the ground in a circle around the fire, and they stared at it like Ephraim. Who were these men, who one moment could be engrossed in the most sordid degraded episode of prostitution she’d ever heard, and the next moment look like statues of the Buddha she’d seen once in an illustrated cultural magazine printed in New York City. A half hour passed, and then they crawled or staggered to their blankets, collapsed onto the ground, and fell asleep.
Cassandra couldn’t drift off, although she was bone-tired. She’d fought an Indian battle, it hadn’t been her average day, and her mind was alive with images of Indians trying to kill her. And then there’d been the incredible story of the whorehouse in San Francisco. Cassandra actually was curious about the prostitute’s special technique, because she sincerely wanted to be a good wife in every way if she ever got married again, although it appeared unlikely, because she was losing her beauty in the hot, dry prairie air.
Cowboys and vaqueros snored around her, and the fire died down. Unable to rest, she arose and looked at them, and all were motionless except the segundo, who sat with a rifle cradled in his lap, searching with his little pig eyes, listening for signs of danger. He and Cassandra were the only ones who hadn’t touched the medicine lying on the ground at Ephraim’s feet.
The Negro cook lay on his back, a beatific smile on his face. Cassandra turned toward the remuda, where the night horses were saddled and ready to ride. Her men slumbered peacefully, and a few snored. She wondered if she should try some of the medicine too, to help her sleep.
It lay in a heap beside Ephraim, and she knelt beside him, picking one up. It obviously was part of a plant, and looked like a dried slice of sausage. She placed it like a sacrament onto her tongue, and it was hard as a rock. The others had eaten three or four, so she sat by the smoldering embers of the fire and chewed them down. Then she returned to her blankets, drank from her canteen, and lay down.
She felt vague warmth radiating out from her spine, and it was cozy to be wrapped in her blankets. The day had been murderous, but now all anxiety evaporated from her mind. She was safe, everything would be all right, and all she needed was sleep.
She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply, as the segundo gazed vacantly into the moonless night.
Chapter Eleven
Stone was awakened by tiny bells tinkling in the distance. He opened his eyes and saw spiderweb patterns of green and red against the dark night sky. His body tingled as he raised himself to a sitting position.
Some of the others stumbled about drunkenly. One of the vaqueros squeezed a handful of dirt and giggled like a child. Ephraim chanted unintelligibly, a gold chain in his hand.
Stone thought he was dreaming. Everything was so peculiar, and the bells continued to peal in his ear. He felt like laughing, or maybe crying, and wanted to be alone, away from the others. He had the presence of mind to make certain his gun was in its holster, and then plucked his old Confederate cavalry hat off the pommel of his saddle. He pulled the hat squarely onto his head and roamed off onto the open prairie.
He knew there were Comanches in the area, but he’d sat around the campfire with them, and they were friends now. Iron Pants had given them the medicine of the Great Spirit— what could go wrong? He walked from the campsite and climbed to the top of a small rise, and it was so dark he couldn’t see six feet in front of him. The wind picked up velocity and touched his face as he sat on the ground. Now he felt alone, free to think, and whatever he did, no one would laugh at him.
What am I doing here? he wondered. It seemed alien to his nature, to be alone in the middle of Texas, with a crew of cowboys and vaqueros, and a herd of longhorns. How did 1 get here?
He remembered the fight with Ephraim, ripping each other with their blades, and it seemed grotesque. How could he do such a thing? He touched his face, covered with bruises and cuts. He also was aware of pain all over his body, but somehow it was outside him, and at his center was peace and contentment.
He looked up at the endless black void, and tiny rays of light emanated from his fingertips. Far off in the distance, he heard the rumble of thunder. It was going to rain, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was sit on the hill and feel the power of the cosmos surge through him.
It was as though he were floating in the air, looking down at himself. He realized how inconsequential he was, when compared with the infinitude of the universe. He, the other cowboys, and the herd would live and die, be forgotten, disappear into the sands of time, and no one would ever know or care about their effort to reach Abilene. They were poor lost clowns and fools, traveling across an endless range, for the amusement of God.
He heard footsteps, and thought the Comanches had returned. He rose to his feet and pulled his gu
n out of its holster as colored lights danced before his eyes. “Who’s there!”
“Me,” replied Cassandra. “Where are you, Johnny?”
“Up here.”
He heard her approach, and then she came into view halfway up the rise. Her cowboy shirt was half-unbuttoned, she’d left her hat behind, and her hair was a profusion of gold. “What’re you doing here?” she asked.
“Thinking.”
“I don’t feel well, Johnny. At first that stuff put me to sleep, but now I feel as if I’m ... I don’t know ... as if I’m not real.”
He gazed at the opening between her breasts, and a musky fragrance arose from her body. For a moment she looked like Marie, but fear was in her eyes. “What’s in that stuff, Johnny?” she asked in a strange singsong voice. “What’s it doing to us?”
Stone looked into the blackness, and on the horizon a faint squiggle of light appeared. “It’s the medicine of the Great Spirit.”
“I feel like I’m melting into the ground.” She sat, and covered her face with her hands. “I’m so unhappy, Johnny. Nothing ever goes right for me.”
He placed his arm around her shoulders. “It never goes right for anybody else either.”
“When I was growing up, everything was easy, but now everything’s so difficult.”
Her face was inches away, he could feel her strong supple body, and remembered when she’d bathed naked in that stream a hundred thousand eons ago. Meanwhile, his closeness was making her nervous, and she pulled away. She looked at him, and he was a big blond male animal with a captivating smile, always so easy to be with. She knew that beneath his dirty bearded exterior, he’d be a gentleman.
She looked at the sky. “Might rain.”
“Might,” he agreed, his eyes roving over her body. The skin on her throat was smooth as satin, her breasts surged against her shirt, and her legs were long, nicely curved, and punctuated by cowboy boots. He felt a mad urge to reach over and unbutton her shirt, so he could see the treasures it concealed.
A man had to be honorable, no matter what Comanche medicine he’d eaten. He saw himself lying naked with her on the ground, and broke out in a cold sweat.
Cassandra thought she should run away, because she was having strange feelings. Rockets burst in the sky behind Stone’s head, and she couldn’t get up even if she wanted to. A deep, desperate emptiness gnawed inside her. The only man she’d ever slept with was her husband, thirty years older than she, and many times she’d wondered what a younger man might be like.
“I’m afraid,” she said. “Maybe we should pray together.”
They got to their knees, bowed their heads, and held hands.
“Dear God,” she whispered, “please protect us, before we do something we shouldn’t.”
“Maybe I’d better go,” he told her.
They were only inches apart in the night. Stone wanted to feel her naked skin, so everything would be all right. They looked at each other, as the night wind blew against them, rustling their hair. He saw a scrumptious young woman with the soul of an angel, and she saw a powerful man who could carry her to the farthest heights of her illicit hopes and dreams. They made jerky frightened movements toward each other, hesitated, and then she let out a cry like a wounded bird as he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. They squeezed each other with all their strength, and searched for each other’s mouths.
He dug his fingernails into her back, and felt her breasts against his shirt. They kissed frantically, as if someone would tear them apart at any moment, and they couldn’t stop now, even if someone held guns to their heads. He dug his hands into her hair and pressed his mouth against hers, and they bruised each other’s lips, tasting each other’s blood as they dropped to their knees on the ground.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but was swept away by hot kisses, and he held her as though he owned her. Snarling like a she-cat in heat, she clawed at his clothes, and he tore her shirt off her back as if it were paper. They were on their knees, bare-chested in front of each other, and he stared at those magnificent orbs that jiggled and wiggled ever so slightly in the breeze. She reached out her hands to him, and her head was cocked to one side, a tear rolling down her cheek. He fell into her arms, feeling her naked breasts against him, and they dropped to the ground, writhing against each other. She wrapped her legs around him, and he hugged her tightly as their mouths ground against each other, and their tongues wrestled.
Both knew they’d passed far over the edge, and could never return. Gone were the conventions of the world as their fingers sought each other’s belts. They panted like dogs as they undressed each other, and no longer was it Cassandra the prim widow from New Orleans, and John Stone, ex-cavalry soldier, but primordial man and woman on the naked earth, with God above and hell below.
She moaned deep in her throat, and he growled like a beast as he pulled her remaining garments away. Finally they were naked, and stared at each other for a few moments, drinking in each other’s bodies with their eyes, but they wanted more. Reaching forward, they clasped each other tightly, and then drank more deep droughts of ambrosia from their open thirsty mouths.
Stone thought nothing mattered except the delicious creature beneath him, who dug her fingers into his thick hair, as he buried his face between her breasts. It’s what he’d wanted to do from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
A cry escaped her lips as they rolled over the ground, clutching desperately, working their bodies without restraint, torn loose from the final gossamer strands of civilized behavior. Cassandra hoped it would last forever as Stone held her in his arms, his brain inflamed by mad lust. He couldn’t take his mouth off her, as if she were the body and blood of life itself, far more satisfying than anything he’d ever tasted, a food that made him stronger than ever, and he knew what it was like to be a giant, or even a god.
Cassandra thought she was going to die as sweet flames engulfed her, while Stone sounded like the raging bull of the pampas. He felt as if lightning were shooting through him, transforming him into a luminous being that arced across the sky like a shooting star.
Light burst out of the heavens, and they heard a roll of thunder. They struggled against each other on the ground, pouring out all the love and passion of their souls, as huge drops of rain fell on their bodies.
And then, out of the depths of their most profound delirium madness, came the voice of Duke Truscott, ramrod of the Triangle Spur: “Stampede!”
Chapter Twelve
Everyone ran toward the remuda as the heavens pealed with thunder and rain poured upon them. Huge spears of lightning rent the sky, forked, and shot into the ground. In the distance they could hear the hoofbeats of the herd.
“Stay with ’em, boys!” Truscott shouted, leaping onto his horse.
“¡Vamanos, muchachos!” yelled Don Emilio.
Stone climbed onto Tomahawk’s back and turned him toward the cattle. The night was pitch-black, but then a bolt of lightning on the horizon illuminated the prairie, and the cowboys could see, for a brief second, longhorns in the distance, running for their lives.
Cassandra sped past Stone, whipping the haunches of her palomino, the wind creasing the brim of her cowboy hat. She knew the herd was disseminated to half its strength, and if she lost this bunch, it’d mean the Last Chance Saloon. “Don’t let ’em get away!” she hollered.
The cowboys and vaqueros galloped through the raging storm, and a bolt of light slammed into the ground, exploding a ton of dirt into the air. Cassandra and the men rode through the falling sod, and it pelted their hats and shirts as their horses streaked toward the cattle.
Something smacked Stone in the middle of his forehead, and he almost fell from Tomahawk’s back. Hailstones large as hen’s eggs fell around him, and a bolt of lightning struck a lone dead prairie tree, wreathing its scraggly top branches in dancing blue lights.
It was like an artillery bombardment in war, lightning bolts striking huge boulders and splitting them in two, while t
he most terrific explosive sounds tore through the atmosphere. The medicine of the Great Spirit still in him, John Stone thought he was back at Brandy Station, and Yankee shells rained upon him. His cavalry saber was in his hand and his yellow sash flew in the breeze behind him as he advanced toward the front rank of Yankees. Clouds of smoke drifted across the battlefield, and he couldn’t see anything for a few harrowing moments, but then the smoke cleared and Stone gazed at blue uniforms directly ahead. The collision of two massive cavalry armies would occur in about a second, and for a moment Stone thought no one could survive the crush, but he grit his teeth and swung his old cavalry saber.
An incredible explosion shook the prairie, and a thick bolt of lightning wrote its unknowable word across the sky. Slipchuck could see the herd straight ahead, not more than a hundred yards away; they were gaining on it. The prairie was plunged into darkness again as Slipchuck slapped his reins against his horse’s rump.
Gone was the gray from Slipchuck’s mustache, and the bald spot on his head. He was twenty years old, this was his first stampede, and he was lean as a whiplash, with muscles like spring steel. Kid Slipchuck zoomed over the prairie, without the aches in his bones, the shortness of breath, and the lassitude that sometimes overtook him.
He was filled with the fire of youth, and carousels of bright colored lights flashed around him. “That injun dogshit’s better’n any likker I ever had!” The hind legs of the drag appeared out of the blackness, and he realized he’d caught the herd. He pulled reins to the side, so he could come up on the right flank of the longhorns, and try to turn them.
Cassandra already had caught the right of the herd, and was zipping along, riding her palomino smoothly, bent low to present minimal resistance to the wind, but was only vaguely aware of what she was doing, felt no contact with the ground, and at times wasn’t aware a horse was beneath her. She felt nothing could harm her, and when she became aware of the herd thundering a few feet to her left, she didn’t care what happened to it, because the universe would go on, so would she, life was eternal, and so was the herd.
